Sun sign or star sign

Tania Ahsan, Editor of Kindred Spirit magazine thinks the cynicism that surrounds astrology "comes from a misunderstanding about how astrology actually works.

Your complete astrological chart, based on your date, time and place of birth, is unique to you. Many uninformed folk say things like ‘how can you narrow it down to 12 personalities for 6.8 billion people in the world?’ and they use that as an argument against astrology.

What you get in newspapers and magazines, your so-called ‘star signs’, is actually sun signs. It only relates to where the sun was at the time of your birth and does not take into consideration all the other planets, the houses or the myriad systems you can use in astrology."

A basic horoscope then, as Ahsan explains, is related to a person's birth time, date and year as well as during which of the 12 zodiac segments the birth occurs.

It is only with this information that a 'true' horoscope can be drawn for an individual. As such, horoscopes as presented in the media are incredibly generic and therefore cannot offer the predictive qualities that people expect from them.